Thus far, we have seen that the spirit and the soul are two distinct parts of man’s being (1 Thes. 5:23; Heb. 4:12; Luke 1:46-47). The body is man’s outermost part and his spirit is his innermost part (John 7:38). Between these two parts is the soul as a medium. A human being is tripartite, of three parts-spirit, soul, and body. The Bible also reveals that the soul is something quite contrary to the spirit.
In 1 Corinthians 2:14 we are told that “a soulish man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he is not able to know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” The soul cannot understand the things of God. It is the spirit that knows, that discerns the things of God. These two parts within us are absolutely different. We cannot understand the things of God merely by the soul because the soul by itself has the ability to know psychological things, not spiritual things. The soul is not able to know the things of God, but it is the spirit that knows the things of God. Many Christians do not know the difference between the spirit and the soul. Some Christians even insist on saying that the spirit and soul are synonymous, but in the Scriptures we are told that the spirit and soul are two absolutely different and distinct entities.
Matthew 16:24-26 shows us that the soul is something we have to reject, to deny. “Then Jesus said to His disciples, If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me” (v. 24). The self has to be denied, renounced, rejected. “For whoever desires to save his soul-life shall lose it; but whoever loses his soul-life for My sake shall find it” (v. 25). If you gain the whole world and lose your soul, what is the profit?
Luke 9:23-25 says, “And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away?” In Matthew it says, “lose his own soul” (16:26). In Luke it says “lose himself” (9:25). This proves the soul is the self.
The Old Testament also clearly tells us that the soul is the self. Leviticus 11:43 says, “Ye shall not make your souls abominable with any creeping thing that creepeth, neither shall ye make yourselves unclean with them, that ye should be denied thereby” (lit.). Then Leviticus 11:44b says, “neither shall ye defile yourselves with any manner of creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” “Yourselves” in verse 44 is “your souls” in verse 43. The Lord told us clearly that we have to deny the soul. The soulish man cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God, so we have to give up, reject, and deny the soul.
The soul is comprised of three parts-the mind, the emotion, and the will (see The Economy of God, pp. 54-56). If you deny your mind, your emotion, and your will, there is nothing left but the spirit. The self is gone. To give up your mind, emotion, and will simply means to give up yourself. To deny yourself is to deny your own thought, your opinion, your idea, your concept, your love, your wish, your will, your decision, and your choice. To deny all this means to deny the self.
A man of the mind is a man of the soul. A man of emotion is a man of the soul. A man of the will is a man of the soul. How do you classify yourself? Are you a man of emotion, mind, or will? Brother Watchman Nee once told us, as an example, that if a person were to walk directly into a wall, the first part of his body to hit the wall would be his nose, the prominent part. If you are a man of emotion, in any matter your emotion will “hit the wall first.” If you are a man of the mind, your mind comes first. If you are a man of the will, your will comes first. Nearly all the sisters are so prominent in the emotion; and most of the brothers are so prominent in the mind. Some of us are so prominent in the will. We have to admit that much of the time we are soulish people because we are so emotional, thoughtful, and willful. We have to learn the lesson to deny the self, the soul, with its emotion, mind, and will. To deny the self is to deny the emotion, mind, and will. After we deny the self, we have the spirit. If we deny the emotion, mind, and will, we give the opportunity, the ground, to the spirit.
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